As the industrial society has been upgraded and professionalized, the dietary life of taking slow foods traditionally has been changed to the dietary life of taking fast foods, the supply of minerals that have been essential for modern people has been insufficient due to stress and contamination factors in the living environment, and the supply of calcium that has been required essentially for modern people has not been smooth.
Although minerals that are required by human bodies exist in human bodies in extremely small amounts, they assume important roles by helping to have cells grow and to maintain body tissues and controlling bodily activities. Particularly, as to calcium that assumes an important role in human body metabolism, it is essential for the prevention of osteoporosis, but it is difficult to supply a proper amount that is necessary for human beings and mammals, and it is problematic in that its intake is increased but the ratio of absorption is low.
Osteoporosis is a skeletal disease commonly suffered by aged, postclimacteric females, or males. In reality, its early diagnosis and prevention are not sufficient yet. Osteoporosis mainly occurs due to lack of hormones such as estrogen, growth hormone, androgenic hormone, etc., or occurs secondarily after thyroid diseases. Osteoporosis is a disease having symptoms of the decrease in osseous density as the amount of destruction of bones by osteoclasts exceeds the amount of production of bones by osteoblasts. It is progressed without special symptoms at first but fracture may occur readily even with a small amount of impact. In menopausal females, the reduction of osseous density occurs rapidly, and thereafter, the reduction of osseous density occurs slowly in both of females and males. In such osteoporosis, there are shown changes in calcium (Ca) in serum and total alkaline phosphatase and changes in the concentrations of hormones related to osteogenesis (such as estradiol, osteocalcin, etc.) and hormones related to osteolysis (such as parathyroid hormone, etc.). Also, the discharge of pyridinoline, which is a collagen cross-linking agent used as an index of osteolysis, in the urine is increased.
In the treatment of osteoporosis, estrogen has been administered as a supplementary therapy of hormones, and it has been reported that the supplementary therapy of hormones should have been initiated in the later part of perimenopause or in the early part of menopause in order to obtain the maximum effects (Stepan J. J. et al., (2003) Endocr Regul 37 (4): 225-238; Chen L. et al., (2000) 20 (4): 283-286). Also, the therapeutic agents of osteoporosis applied to contraindication of the administration of estrogen include calcium, bisphosphonate, calcitonin, raloxifene, vitamin D, etc.
In the meantime, calcitonin is a hormone produced in C-cells of thyroid gland. Its physiological actions in human bodies are not yet clear, but it is deemed that it is involved in the minute control of calcium homeostasis for a short time probably, and the effect of suppression of osteolysis is shown with pharmacological doses. Particularly, it has been reported that calcitonin has been more effective for high-turnover-rated osteoporosis. Examples of therapeutic agents having the effect of treatment of osteoporosis include ‘Fosamax’ and ‘Evista’ on the market showing their effects through the mechanism of suppressing damages to bones or slowing-down the speed of damages to bones through the action of hindering of the production and activities of osteoclasts as well as a new therapeutic agent of osteoporosis called ‘Porteo’ helping the formation of new bones by accelerating the production and activities of osteoblasts. Although, among new chemical drugs, ralroxifene has been a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) and an ideal drug acting as an estrogen efficacy drug in the osseous cardiovascular system but as an estrogen antagonist in the breast and uterus, the toxicity of this drug shown during its metabolism has been reported recently (Hirsimaki P. et al., (2002) Breast J. 8 (2): 92-96).